the end of my street, there is a Little Free Library. The contents are always telling: the neighbors’ obsessions, overcome or disavowed. The other day, I brought home a book called “Almonds Every Which Way.”

In it, the author celebrates the ever-increasing popularity of almonds, an ingredient, she writes, that gives any meal the “glow of goodness.” Although published just last year, it was an eerie relic of a simpler time.